Thomas Paine Essay - Critical Essays

Thomas Paine, a largely self-educated Englishman who was a corset-maker by trade, has been recognized as a primary force in the American Revolution since its instigation in 1775; he was similarly influential in the French Revolution, sparked in 1789. Several commentators have credited Paine with turning the tide of American opinion from tepid colonial discontent to the revolutionary conviction necessary for independence. Unlike other leading men of the revolution, such as John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson, Paine enjoyed none of the advantages of wealth, such as social status and extensive formal education. Paine, however, turned his disadvantages into advantages, positioning himself as the spokesman of the American populace—a population he moved profoundly with the publication of the pamphlet Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America early in 1776, a work that was in itself revolutionary in its vernacular style and directness. Because of his many writings and efforts on behalf of newly-emerging democratic governments, Paine has become emblematic of the modern struggle for human rights and social justice. He was also considered to be ahead of his time in his critiques of slavery, unfair labor practices, gender inequality, and even cruelty to animals.

Biographical Information

Paine was born in the small village of Thetford in England on January 29, 1737. His father was a Quaker and a middle-class tradesman—he made stays for women's corsets. At a time when only upper-class men received an extensive formal education, Paine had only six years of the typical English curriculum—English, Latin, Greek, mathematics—before he had to go to work with his father in the family business. At nineteen (some biographers say sixteen), he joined in England's war effort against France, signing on with the privateer ship The King of Prussia. In 1757, he began supporting himself as a staymaker, living for two years first in London, then Dover, then Sandwich, where he married Mary Lambert in 1759; within a year, she passed away. Paine began his career as a civil servant in 1761, when he became an excise officer—a customs official—in Lincolnshire, a post he held with only one brief interruption until 1774. He married again in 1771, to Elizabeth Ollive of Lewes. It was also during this year that he began to display evidence of his future calling, when he took up the cause of excise officers who felt they received an unfair wage. Paine wrote a pamphlet, The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), to argue on their behalf and, in 1772-1773, went to London to lobby Parliament, unsuccessfully, for consideration. All he won for his effort, however, was a permanent dismissal from his post in 1774. That same year, he and his wife opted for a separation.

On the verge of bankruptcy, Paine went to London, where he became acquainted with Benjamin Franklin, who convinced him to try his luck in the British colonies in North America. Paine began his American career in Philadelphia, where he became a writer for a monthly periodical called the Pennsylvania Magazine. (Paine added the "e" to his surname after his arrival in America.) Paine had never stopped pursuing his education. He read everything he could find and attended lectures in every city in which he lived. He socialized with men more learned than himself, many of them scholars, and consulted with them informally as tutors. Paine's early success at the Pennsylvania Magazine—he became editor in 1775—was largely due to his style, which was uncommonly accessible to a general readership. Nonetheless, Paine left the journal, it is believed, in the fall of 1775. He was, all the same, already at work on his first significant work, a slim pamphlet called Common Sense. Published in January of 1776, it captured in succinct and persuasive prose otherwise unexpressed revolutionary sentiment. Although military conflict between Great Britain and the colonies had begun in the spring of the previous year, most Americans still sought some form of reconciliation with England. Common Sense, as most commentators since have argued, laid to rest the colonial mindset, replacing it with the fervent desire for national independence. The work sold over 100,000 copies in its first two months, and, published anonymously, was assumed to be the work of men much more well-known and well-educated than Paine, including John Adams and Franklin.

Without employment in 1776, Paine dedicated his body as well as his pen to the revolutionary cause, joining up with the Pennsylvania militia. He continued writing to his very broad, enthusiastic audience, penning sixteen pamphlets under the title The Crisis, or The American Crisis, the first of which appeared at the end of 1776. The publication of these pamphlets continued through to April 1783, when the war ended. Paine left the army at the beginning of 1777, convinced that he was not serving the revolution best in that capacity. Instead he became a commission secretary to several government bodies, including the Continental Congress. He served the Congress until 1779, when political complications forced him out of that position; he was then elected clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Despite his successes as a pamphleteer and his many positions, Paine found himself once again penniless at the war's end in 1783: he had given all his profits from his publications to support the war. The states of Pennsylvania and New York and the new nation, via Congress, made him several gifts of cash and land. By the end of the decade Paine had become involved in many new projects, including a passion for bridge design; the latter took him to France in 1787, just as the revolutionary fervor there was mounting. He remained in Paris until July of 1791, serving the French Revolution in many capacities, even though he did not speak the language at all.

Edmund Burke, a prominent English statesman, published his influential criticism of France, Reflections on the Revolution in France, in 1790. Many defenders of France published responses, but the most significant of these replies was Paine's, the first part of which appeared in 1791. Completed in 1792, Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution sold millions of copies in France and England. As with Common Sense, this publication made Paine both revered and despised in his homeland. Consequently, Paine's attempt to resettle in London was cut short; he fled in 1792, just ahead of the officers seeking his arrest on charges of high treason. He was convicted in absentia. Taking sanctuary in France, Paine was elected to several positions in the National Assembly and appointed to the committee responsible for framing the new constitution. The tenor of the French Revolution, however, diverged from Paine's values as it moved into a bloodthirsty phase commonly known as the "Terror," during which "enemies of the people"—both members of the former ruling class and less radical revolutionaries—were imprisoned and guillotined. Speaking against the planned execution of Louis XVI, the deposed king, Paine found himself incarcerated by the end of 1793, where he remained until James Monroe, the American ambassador to France, secured his release late in 1794. Restored to his position in the French government soon after, Paine remained in France until 1802. He produced his last significant pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, in 1797.

Paine immigrated to America again in 1802, although his reputation with Americans had been greatly damaged by several of his publications from the previous decade: The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Famous Theology (1794-1795), which critiqued organized religion and struck many readers as blasphemous, and the Letter to George Washington, President of the United States of America, on Affairs Public and Private (1796), which viciously attacked a man revered by Americans. Nonetheless, he remained in the United States until he passed away, largely unnoticed, on June 8, 1809.

Major Works

Although Paine produced articles and pamphlets almost nonstop after his arrival in colonial America, certain works stand out for their influence both at the time of their publication and over the ensuing centuries. Some, including Common Sense and Rights of Man, have become almost legendary, inspiring activists engaged in causes years after Paine's death; President Abraham Lincoln, for example, read Paine's works as he fought to end slavery in the United States.

Paine's writings share a generally consistent viewpoint and goal; although scholars can chart some changes in Paine's thinking, the framework of his perspective remained stable over the years. His style also remained largely the same, always remarkable for its difference from the dominant prose of the era, which consisted of complex sentences proposing complex arguments, written by highly-educated men for an audience of other highly-educated men. Paine, on the other hand, wrote to the broad mass of people in England and America, most of whom would have only as much as, if not less than, his six years of formal schooling. Consequently, his sentences were much more simple and direct, and his arguments turned on one or two accessible principles and pursued persuasion through clarity and repetition. He avoided the allusions and metaphors typical of prose for the highly literate, and chose instead references that would be available to common laborers and tradespeople. Sharing these standards, his major works differed from one another primarily in their focuses, which were often determined by the moment in which they were written.

Common Sense not only marks the real starting point of Paine's career as a pamphleteer in 1776, it also typifies his work. Rather than proposing any new political philosophies, Common Sense was remarkable for gathering up, in a sharp and powerful statement, the scattered strands of revolutionary thought. Once presented to the American public in this form, these arguments for America's need to cut itself free, both politically and economically, from the monarchy of the British Empire, instigated the drive to independence. A no-holds-barred critique of monarchy, Common Sense argued that Americans owed no loyalty to King George III or any hereditary ruler. Historians also credit Paine with maintaining the revolutionary spirit throughout the war years, from 1776 to 1783, with the many issues of The American Crisis, each of which offered further critiques of England and justifications for the American fight. The first issue began with the now legendary declaration that "These are the times that try men's souls."

With Rights of Man, published in 1791 and 1792 as a reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, Paine's criticisms of hereditary government became their most explicit and demanding. His attacks on the monarchy and the aristocracy, meant to inspire the English populace to their own acts of revolution, also roused the ire of the ruling classes: unlike his previous works, this one was declared treasonous and caused his exile from England. Part I offers an explanation of the purpose of government, which Paine saw as essentially democratic—that is, it could exist legitimately only by the consent of the governed. Part II constituted an undisguised call for English subjects to topple the monarchy and create a constitutional democracy. In The Age of Reason, Paine turned his anti-establishment gaze on religious institutions, arguing that organized religions perpetuate oppression and ignorance. He espoused, instead, a deistic faith based on reason and consistent with a scientific view of nature. Many of the views he expressed shared the basic assumptions of other thinkers of the era; nonetheless, Paine incurred much more anger than did other rationalists, particularly with his direct efforts to refute many of the central tenets of Christianity. Although some critics would consider this his final significant work, other major works include Agrarian Justice, written in 1797, which most clearly articulates Paine's economic views. Written in the context of land reform debates in post-revolutionary France, the pamphlet suggests methods to eliminate the exploitation of laborers and to achieve a more equal distribution of wealth.

Critical Reception

By the time Paine passed away, he had fallen far from the pinnacle of his celebrity in revolutionary America. Even in the land where he had contributed the most directly to the success of the nation, he had become forgotten at best and despised at worst. He had contributed to this fall himself in a variety of ways, particularly with the publication of The Age of Reason and the Letter to George Washington, but his loss of public favor was also due to certain detractors. James Cheetham, most prominently, cemented an unpopular image of Paine with a biography published in 1809; that work set Paine's image for at least another century. Despite some isolated efforts to reassess Paine's image in the nineteenth century, and the admiration of some respected readers, including Abraham Lincoln, Paine's reputation held its taint through even the beginning of the twentieth century, when Theodore Roosevelt repeated the old charge that Paine was a "filthy little atheist."

It remained for scholars in the twentieth century to rediscover Paine and his work. Such scholars gradually developed a new view of the significance and complexity of Paine's writings. For these critics, discussions generally turned on several key issues. Early in this century, for example, there was still considerable debate about Paine's originality as a political thinker, many critics seeking to undermine his value by pointing out that the content of his works was largely derivative. More recently, however, it has become commonplace to find Paine's significance in his ability to articulate those ideas in original and fundamentally "democratic" language. Scholars such as Olivia Smith, for example, identify Paine as the progenitor of a written vernacular that addressed and even helped bring into being a mass audience. A changing perception of Paine may also be due simply to the passage of time: political and religious views that once shocked even other revolutionaries now strike many readers as comfortably progressive and self-evident.

The Case of the Officers of Excise (political pamphlet) 1772Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (political pamphlet) 1776The American Crisis (political pamphlets) 1776-1783 Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke's Attack on the French Revolution (political treatise) 1791-1792The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Famous Theology (political treatise) 1794-1795Letter to George Washington, President of the United States of America, on Affairs Public and Private (political pamphlet) 1796Agrarian Justice (political pamphlet) 1797The Writings of Thomas Paine, 4 vols. (anthology, edited by...

(The entire section is 115 words.)

Get Free Access

Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to this resource and thousands more.

30,000+ Study Guides

Save time with thousands of teacher-approved book and topic summaries.

SOURCE: "Tom Paine's First Appearance in America," in Highlights in the History of the American Press: A Book of Readings, edited by Edwin H. Ford and Edwin Emery, University of Minnesota Press, 1954, pp. 100-11.

[In the second part of his Atlantic Monthly biography of Paine (from November, 1859), excerpted below, Sheldon recounts the revolutionary's role in the French Revolution and his efforts to inspire democratic fervor in England. As in his previous article, Sheldon summarizes the content of Paine's major works and illustrates the dramatic political situations in which he wrote.]

When Tom Paine came to America in 1774, he found the dispute...

(The entire section is 4709 words.)

Get Free Access

Start your free trial with eNotes for complete access to more than 30,000 study guides!

[In the following essay (from December of 1859) Sheldon charts the first part of Paine's career as a pamphleteer. Hailing Paine as a primary force in the American move toward independence, Sheldon wrote against popular opinion of his day, which still tended to dismiss Paine's importance and integrity.]

[While he was in England in the late 1780s, Paine's] soul was engrossed by the contemplation of the wonderful event which was daily developing itself in France. Bankruptcy had brought on the crisis. In August, 1788, the interest was not paid on the...

[In the following essay, Stephen's review of Paine's major works substantiates his contention that Paine argued in a direct and formulaic fashion that emphasized one or two clear-cut hypotheses.]

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, in a letter to Francis Wayles Eppes (1821):

You ask my opinion of Ld. Bolingbroke and Thomas Paine. They were alike in making bitter enemies of the priests and Pharisees of their day. Both were honest men; both advocates for human liberty. Paine wrote for a...

[In the essay that follows, Merriam outlines the basic tenets of Paine's political thought, defining at length his concepts of human nature and government. Merriam contends that Paine viewed government as a necessary evil, tolerable only in a democratic form.]

The political theories of Thomas Paine were struck off in the course of a career that extended over the revolutionary quarter of the eighteenth century and persistently followed the storm centre of the revolutionary movement.1 In January, 1776, he issued his famous pamphlet...

[In the following essay, Clark presents Paine as a literary "craftsman" who abided by a set of guidelines for effective writing, including clarity, boldness, wit, and appeal to feeling. Clark also suggests that Paine's view of language originated in his views of religion and nature.]

Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president of the United States, on Common Sense:

One such [pamphlet] took precedence of all others, whether for boldness or for power, the...

[In the following essay, Dorfman depicts Paine as an advocate of free trade and charts some of his engagements with the development of American economic thought.]

On the eve of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine, a failure in England, landed in America and threw in his fortunes with the revolting colonists, fighting "for the security of their natural rights and the protection of their own property."1 Then began a career which made him one of the most powerful pamphleteers of the eighteenth century. Not only did he play a prominent...

[In the essay that follows, Penniman parallels the moment in which he writes—during World War II—with the tumultuous time in which Paine wrote. He goes on to summarize the fundamental principles that girded the democracy that Paine ultimately espoused.]

These may be "the times that try men's souls," as President Roosevelt recently told the nation, but they may also be the times when free and courageous men may push forward toward the better society of which Thomas Paine dreamed when he pleaded with the colonists for unity in the cause of...

SOURCE: "The Poetry of Thomas Paine," in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. LXXIX, No. 1, January, 1955, pp. 81-99.

[Addressing the much-neglected body of Paine's poetical writings, the essay that follows summarizes and assesses some of Paine's most read and more notable poems.]

Even the most fanatic devotees of Thomas Paine have had very little to say concerning his verse. Some of his admirers maintain that his prose has merit enough to secure him a respected place in American literature without the need of poetry. Others say that since he proved his talents in verse to be worthy of his prose, it is regrettable that he failed to encourage his...

[In the following essay, Boulton seeks to re-evaluate the "vulgarity" of Paine's style in light of its efficacy and purpose; although it may not have suited the aesthetic standards of the era, Boulton argues, it did suit itself to Paine's intended audience and sense of urgency.]

Prose—especially political prose—written for a largely uneducated audience seems to present the literary critic with a difficult problem of evaluation. Writers—such as those examined by John Holloway in The Victorian Sage—who cater for an...

[In the following chapter from his book, Fennessy investigates the connection of Paine 's Rights of Man to Edmund Burke's famous indictment of the French Revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Overall, Fennessy describes Paine as, first, failing to understand Burke's work and, second, making many logical errors in his own.]

Paine plans to write on the revolution

After writing his letter to Burke,1 Paine stayed on in Paris, watching with...

[In the essay that follows, Hinz argues against the assumption that, because Paine declared his faith in reason alone, his works sought to convince via the laws of reason; Hinz contends quite the converse—that Paine employed many alogical strategies in his efforts to persuade readers.]

"In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense ... " wrote Thomas Paine in the first of the trio of works—Common Sense, The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason—which has established his...

SOURCE: "Rights of Man and Its Aftermath," in The Politics of Language, 1791-1819, Clarendon Press, 1984, pp. 35-67.

[In this chapter from her landmark book The Politics of Language, 1791-1819, Smith uses a close reading of Paine's word choice and grammar in order to establish the significance of his impact on language and political thought.]

John Simple, speaking of his wife's stay-maker to Mr Worthy: 'He is one of the prettiest-spoken men in the world'.1

The publication of Rights of Man demonstrated that a language could be neither vulgar nor refined, neither primitive nor...

SOURCE: "The Crisis," in Thomas Paine's American Ideology, University of Delaware Press, 1984, pp. 240-53.

[In the essay that follows, Aldridge reviews the series of pamphlets collectively titled the Crisis, which Paine published during the course of the Revolutionary War and which, consequently, reflect the array of issues and ideas that then permeated American thought.]

Much less has been written about Paine's Crisis than his Common Sense, probably because it concerns itself primarily with events and circumstances in the military and diplomatic struggle and devotes relatively little attention to ideology.

[In the following chapter from his book, Fruchtman demonstrates that Paine's rationalist view of nature as product of God and reason at once shaped his belief that democracy was the only political form consistent with human nature and rights.]

Human nature was one dimension of nature in Paine's ministry. Another was the physical world: the landscape and the heavens as God had created them. In the act of creation, God gave his people the trees, the sea, and the sky as well as human freedom and the rights of man. Human beings...

SOURCE: "Paine Reads the Bible," in Paine, Scripture, and Authority: The Age of Reason as Religious and Political Idea, Lehigh University Press, 1994, pp. 70-87.

[Focusing on The Age of Reason, the following chapter from Davidson and Scheick's book analyzes Paine's effort to undermine the authority of the Bible and his effort to create a sense of authority for himself]

Paine intended The Age of Reason to present what he called "the theology that is true" (1:464). His own faith, he professed, contained two articles: "I believe in one God, and no more; . . . and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and...